Rainbow Six

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It's streamlined to fit your N64, but this is still a great PC to N64 conversion.

By Aaron Boulding

A hit PC game coming to the N64 is a good thing when the home console version is accurate and faithful to the original intent of the game. There's nothing worse than getting a crappy lackluster N64 game that merely has the name of a popular PC title on the box. In the case of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six for the N64, we're getting an engaging gaming experience like no other on the console that stays true enough to the computer game to satisfy the nitpickers. This Saffire developed shooter/strategy is a top notch effort to bring as much of the depth, action and intricate details to the N64 as possible. It's not perfect a perfect game because you'll run out of levels quickly and it hurts a little more when you're having this fun.

Gameplay The premise behind the game is that you're in control of a highly trained team of counter terrorist operatives with cool guns and neat equipment. You'll get more out of R6 if you can appreciate all of the juicy details associated with these paramilitary covert action teams, but even without the tremendous backstory, this title has tremendous gameplay value. We won't spoil the story of the game for those of you who haven't read the book, but we will tell you that the twisting plot reveals itself as you progress from level to level. You'll get all of the backstory and plot you'll need anyway from the game's briefing and intel sections before each mission.

Before the start of a mission you'll be able to pick the personnel you'll be using, their equipment and, if you choose, their plan of attack. The twenty operatives all have different strengths and weaknesses across such categories as leadership, self control, electronics and stealth. You need to assemble the right people for the job and it can make a difference. Since the default setting is to have two teams of two people each you want the right man or woman taking the lead and somebody that's good at covering their back paired with them. Likewise weaponry makes a difference because if you go into a delicate situation with your guns making all kinds of noise, those nervous terrorists might just off the hostages with no questions asked and that would end your mission quickly.

You have a total of four color coded teams available and you can assign whomever you wish to whatever team you want. You have to keep track of all those people and teams and whatnot so it may be wise to simplify and just use the default settings and prepare to be effective with whoever you end up controlling.

While the concept of the game is one-shot, one-kill, we'll tell you now that, yes, your player can take more than one bullet and, yes, it can take more than one shot to kill a bad guy. If you assign heavier bullet proof padding to your guys or if you only nick the terrorist in the shoulder from 200 yards away then you'll see what we mean.

Rainbow Six can actually be considered two games in one since, like the PC version, you can plan your team's method of attack or simply execute it yourself from a first person perspective. The first person perspective looks like a typical FPS experience but it doesn't play like one. You get a floating targeting interface that gets bigger and smaller depending on how fast you're moving, which determines that accuracy of your shot. You have the option for auto targeting which we suggest you use because death comes quickly when it's one-shot, one-kill.

The controls are basically Turok style with the analog stick used to aim and the c-buttons used to move. The key to the control set up is that for certain functions like night vision and weapon reloading, you'll actually have to take a hand off of the controller, unless you have mutant fingers, to hit the appropriate button. At first this seems like a clumsy set up but if you consider that a real operative would have to do even more than that to gain the advantage of night vision or to pick a locked door, you get the feeling that maybe Rainbow Six knows what its doing when it makes you do all of that stuff.

The gist of the one player game is to see the bad guys first so you can pop 'em nice and quietly. As you advance in the game and/or increase the difficulty level the enemies become more aggressive, better trained and they tend to hide a lot better than they did in the beginning. Often times, you won't even see enemies until it's too late and you catch a glimpse of them in your little death cut scene or you'll hear your partner shooting at something and he'll call out "Tango Down!" before you even knew what happened. While it is cool as hell to finally have a game where the cooperative A.I. actually helps you, you don't want to be relying on your backup guy to cover you too often. That usually means you have no clue what's going on and you'll probably be shot soon.

As you progress through the game, you'll actually start thinking like a real counter-terrorist operative. You'll find yourself peeking around corners rather than just stomping down a hallway like you would in GoldenEye or Quake. You'll learn to look behind doors, in the corners and many other 'blind' spots when you enter rooms. This is all good because it brings you even deeper into the game, and you will have to be thinking like a member of Rainbow Six by the time you get towards the end of the game.

One bad habit that most of us will have to get over is the tendency to back up when you hear gunfire and don't know where it's coming from. Those of us who are really into first person shooters know that you move quickly when you're being shot at. In R6, you have to move quickly and smartly because you can move in a direction that will give the bad guy, wherever he his, an even better shot at you. Or even worse if you panic and back up quickly, the first person you're going to see is your partner who will appear to be leveling weapon at you because he's been facing in the opposite direction, covering your back. We don't have to tell you what happens next. Let's just say our first few times playing R6, we didn't get to know our partners very well because they'd be gone the first time anyone shot at us.

Multiplayer The multiplayer game is a well done two-player cooperative mode that's a whole lot of fun to play. The lack of a dedicated four player deathmatch shouldn't really be considered a drawback because the concept of R6 doesn't really lend itself to a deathmatch on the console. Playing online against teams of other Rainbow Six players scattered around the world is a lot different than sitting in the same room with your buddies, each of you with his or her own quarter screen, trying to hunt each other down so you can fire that one fatal shot. Besides if the competitive spirit in you just craves a deathmatch you and a friend can simply kill your computer teammate, split up and try to find each other somewhere inside the building or forest or jungle. We're telling you the fun ends quickly when one of you shoots the other in the back of the head and all of a sudden one of you is playing the game alone.

The cooperative mode is fun in that it's totally up to you and your friend how you want to play. If you prefer to stick close and cover each other there's a strong likelihood that the a couple of terrorist could just wipe out the whole lot of you. On the other hand, if you decide to split up and roam around killing terrorists, there's always the chance that your two teams could surprise each other and, that's right, you'll have a friendly-fire massacre. Seriously, the two player co-op mode will lead to some of the best gaming you and a friend of your choice will have on the N64 because of the constant interaction, teamwork required and sense of accomplishment. This mode alone warrants the game's purchase as there is nothing really like it on the N64. It would have been nice to have a four-player team option, though.

Planning Mode The planning mode is well done and can get pretty darn complicated especially considering the quick action fix most of us expect from our N64s. Simply put, you get a map of the level and you can assign way points and pathways that separate squad members will follow. You can have your computer controlled guys just rush in a blast all of the bad guys with computer like efficiency or you can tell them to advance to certain points where they'll wait until you give them the code to continue on towards the objective. If you go in to take over a room for example, there's no guarantee that your guys will come out on top just because you're letting the game's A.I. run them. This is where weaponry and individual traits like courage and leadership of the characters you've chosen will come into play. If you send a cowardly demolitions expert in there by himself with a lame pistol, you will lose him plain and simple. These are terrorists after all.

Planning some parts of your attack can be a nice time saving way to have another squad of guys close by just in case the team you're controlling gets blasted. There's no point in having a pair of guys way back at the beginning of the game all nice and safe, when you're deep in the bowels of the compound or base, waging war. If the members of your team get killed you'll have to guide your new team all the way back to where your first group was killed to continue progressing through the level. Very frustrating. This is the best way to experience Rainbow Six, since most of us will want to use the first person mode more often and you'll want all of your 'live' readily available.

Sound Rainbow Six makes use of sound better than most games on the N64. There's no super cool dynamic music or surround sound. It's just used so well throughout the game. You'll come to rely on it, in fact.

Everything in R6 makes noise. If you insist on wearing that heavy bullet proof padding so you can take more shots to the body, that's fine. Not only will your guy move slower but that outfit will make plenty of jingling and jangling noises that will alert enemies that are close enough to hear it. If you turn and shoot a wall with a suppressed weapon it will make the loud cracking sound as the bullet rips into the wood or stucco. If you shoot a wall 100 yards away, all you'll hear is the click of the trigger and the ejection of the shell. Exquisite.

It's not just about sound effects either. You have to play R6 with the volume up because the speech samples aren't only well done they'll help you along the way. "Tango Down!" or "Got 'im!" is what you'll hear over your radio headset whenever a team member caps a baddie, even if he's on the other side of the complex. Throw a grenade into a room and you'll get the tried and true "Fire in the hole!" along with the panicked gibberish in the native tongue of whatever terrorist happens to be in the room you're bombing. If you get in an all out firefight and run out of bullets, your guy will freak out and yell "weapon's dry!" Time to do some reloading.

While the music isn't award winning it too is used very effectively throughout the game. Borrowing a page from our favorite horror movies, Rainbow Six has wonderfully timed music stings that hit whenever you open a door that may or may not contain bad guys on the other side. On super quiet levels with very little background noise like the U.S. Capitol building, this can get very nerve racking. Sometimes there are enemies there, and you'll thank the music for keeping you alert. Other times, there will be no sting at all when you open the room that has eight angry terrorists in it. Either way you'll have to remain on your toes.

There's no voice sampling in the briefing sections of the game, which would've been a nice touch, but Saffire has included voice in the part of the game that matters most. There aren't many games on the N64 that apply sound to gameplay better than R6.

Graphics This isn't the strongest area of Tom Clancy's R6 and thankfully it doesn't have to rely on its looks to get by. The good thing is the action is paced in such a way that there's virtually no threat of a drop in framerate. The animations are a little stylized but they're consistent and certainly don't hurt the game.

The textures on the buildings and backgrounds are obviously simplified to keep the game moving along but not so blatantly sterile to bother anybody. The game gets a little blurry on some levels in a Mission: Impossible sort of way. The fact that you're always running around haciendas, office buildings, warehouses or compound could contribute the overall blockiness of the game's look, but the color scheme and textures are good enough so that the structures look real enough to interact with.

The terrorists and hostages that you'll encounter aren't the most expressive types but they move well and, in the case of the terrorists, extremely fast. Your Rainbow Six team members are all dark skinned and eyeless and look a little awkward. The sharp angles that make up all of the characters of the game fit in with the stylized look of the backgrounds but they're all animated very well. You can actually see players and enemies aim their weapons, breathe heavily and even sway and lean naturally as humans tend to do when they're standing around.

The Verdict

Rainbow Six was a game that I couldn't wait to get my hands on and dive into. There is a lot of walking around and the action can seem clustered around certain areas of the level, but there is so much to hold your attention while you're on your way to the mission objective. Since even the easiest missions require you killing every terrorist on the level, that last guy lingering out there can be the biggest psychological threat. It's little mind games like this that make R6 such a treat. The mental tensions are made so engaging because of the little details in the sound, backstory and controls of the game. It all adds up to a tremendous amount of fun. The only thing that gets in the way is the game's length. Even with the bonus Eagle Watch missions and even after you've jacked up the difficulty to the highest level, R6 can seem to be not enough of a great thing. We have to be nitpicky ourselves and I guess the good news is that the game's length is the only nit worth picking.